We all know the power of brands in our globalised and commoditised society to fashion the expectations and desires of their billions of customers, and we see how western values are perverting developing societies with the same destructive addiction to owning stuff.

But do brands have the capacity to start leading us out of this dead end, and how much wriggle room do they have, given the constraints of their corporate straightjackets?

Let's first look at how far they have already come on the sustainability journey. It's true that many leading brands have started to understand the risks to their businesses from a future world traumatised by climate change, resource depletion and ecosystem collapse, to name just a few of the challenges we face.

As a result, the more progressive brands are gaining confidence in taking steps to mitigate some of these impacts, whether it be through pre-competitive collaboration or initiatives to reduce energy and material use.

Beyond this, a few major companies are leading from the front, such as Unilever, which is now making each brand responsible for embedding sustainability into its core purpose.

Another emerging trend is the understanding that the marketing firepower and creativity that brands have used to sell products can also be directed to encourage more responsible customer behaviour.

Examples range from Levi's asking customers to wash their jeans less often and Nike rewarding those who have put the most into their training, to L'Oreal and UNESCO training 1.5 million hairdressers around the world to discuss safe sex with their customers.

However, put all these together and they fail to stack up to more than a row of beans – although it is important to recognise that brands are building the knowledge and confidence to take potentially bolder steps in the future.

As we saw, for example, in the case of the Bangladeshi garment factory disaster, big brands can get together at great speed to agree new operating rules when push comes to shove.

What these incremental steps do not even begin to address, however is sustainable consumption. This is because brand owners remain attached to the umbilical cord of short-termism and argue weakly that they can only continue to grow if they decouple this from resource use.

But I want to focus on another area major brands are failing to address, but where they could make a huge difference, which is in the field of political activism.

Could political engagement be the answer?

Companies are extremely sensitive to the fact that their brands, which have in many cases been developed over decades, can by damaged in a matter of days by a well-aimed grassroots movement supported by social media. But they have so far failed to recognise how they themselves can use political engagement to drive change.

Brands complain in private about politicians' failure to create progressive regulations, but all too often fail to advocate for action in public – and continue to be members of powerful trade associations that use their lobbying power behind closed doors to maintain the status quo.

Occasionally, groups of CEOs do get together to sign letters to government ministers, and it was good to recently see more than 30 major US companies, including eBay, Nike and Limited Brands sign a Climate Declaration, urging federal policymakers to take action on global warming.

But these public expressions are rarely sustained, do not have any significant resources behind them, and fail to engage customers.

Alongside this, brands' focus on behaviour change – encouraging customers to use products more responsibly – is holding people back from understanding their role as citizens.

Constantly telling them that the world can be saved by small actions, such as buying more sustainable products or turning down the thermostat, can only exacerbate this disconnection from the political process.

But it would not take a huge step to imagine brands using the same behavioural change skills to promote political action. Many companies already do this in a very watered-down way, encouraging volunteerism and recycling, while in the US many corporates encouraged voters to turn out at the last general election.

Power in numbers

It is not to suggest that every company CEO becomes an Anita Roddick-style campaigner. But what it does mean is that progressive brands join forces, preferably with a social media giant such as Facebook or Google, to pick on specific areas where they believe they can team up with their customers to push for change. Protecting biodiversity is one area where it would be possible to see business and customers joining forces in a creative way.

Of course, businesses are fearful about public political engagement because they worry it will backfire on them. But at this moment of great danger, we need to support the creation of unusual alliances and as long as companies are open and transparent about the issues they feel need addressing and the tactics they are using, they may even gain some much-needed trust.

Such a move would require businesses to develop new skills. In the same way that NGOs have had to learn how to collaborate with business on issues ranging from supply chain management to the eradication of toxic chemicals, it may now be the time for the corporate sector to collaborate with civil society groups on developing the art of political activism.

Business cannot help but notice that many parts of the world are being convulsed by economic upheaval or sectarian rivalry. Just witness the riots in Sweden to see that no country can any longer be considered reliably stable.

They are also starting to recognise that the impact of climate change on the availability of food, water and energy will lead to further social and political conflict.

Better that brands reach out now to their billions of customers in new and dynamic ways than see their businesses washed away in a tidal wave of turmoil and dissent.